The former Navy Base in North Charleston that closed back in 1996 is finally on its way to adding new construction, including both single and multi-family homes

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - New ownership brings new developments. The former Navy Base in North Charleston that closed back in 1996 is finally on its way to adding new construction, including both single and multi-family homes.

Since the base closed its doors in 1996, the city had an original master plan that was created in 2004 for this redevelopment. Now, the city has a revamped plan, known as the “Navy Base Redevelopment District” that they say is going to help bring even more connectivity to this area.

The city of North Charleston says the “Navy Base Redevelopment District” will include areas south of Virginia Avenue, areas around Noisette Boulevard, and Reynolds Avenue as the main focus. Megan Clark, the city’s planning and division director, says they are renovating two buildings on the base. One for residential and one for offices and retail.

Clark says other buildings could be hotels or strictly office buildings.

“All of that’s permitted,” Clark said. “The only development that we have proposed right now is just reused to those two buildings for the multi-family and office and retail.”

The city owns a lot of the property surrounding the base, such as the Noisette Creek Pedestrian Bridge, the Admirals House and Riverfront Park. Clark says they do not have a set number of how many people will be able to move to this area as they preserve the historic district.

“There’s a height district surrounding the historic buildings, so we maintain that character along Noisette,” Clark said. “But beyond that, there isn’t a height district. Potentially, you know, if you can park the facilities then you can put as many units as can fit.”

The city says they have nothing budgeted for this because they won’t have to pay if a property is privately owned. However, they can join an agreement with someone if they wish to do so.

The city’s planning commission will have two public hearings on Monday, Jan. 9. The first will be about the proposal of this new plan and the second will be approving the rezoning of the actual property. From there, it will need to go through city council readings in order to officially move forward.

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CHARLESTON S.C. (WCIV) — Wonderful things can happen when a community comes together.

Lowcountry non-profit, Metanoia SC, is listening to the people who live in North Charleston's Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood.

Over the past 20 years, Metanoia has been implementing programs to meet residents' needs to generate positive changes.

Shawn Saulsberry is the Board Chair of Metanoia.

"It's a huge responsibility because Metanoia is literally serving the area that I grew up in," Saulsberry said.

Saulsberry remembers growing up in what's known as "Charleston Heights," or the "Heights" in North Charleston.

The community played an important part in his childhood.

"I didn't have the organization that we have today, but somehow I ran across those metanoia-type people who saw me, and they invested in me."

His grandfather taught him the importance of entrepreneurship.

"My grandfather taught us to work hard at an early age. He would let us rent the lawnmower from him, and we would go and cut grass in the community, and we would get to keep the profits," Saulsberry said.

Now, as a Senior Manager at the accounting firm Ernst & Young, Saulsberry uses his background of a strong work ethic to encourage the youth in the neighborhood.

Metanoia serves as a youth leadership pipeline.

"I'm not the smartest or the brightest, but I do know how to work hard, and I also know how to have endurance and not stop and just encourage them. If you do those things eventually, you're gonna find what you love. You're gonna find what you want to do in life, and it's gonna work well for you," said Saulsberry.

Metanoia was launched in 2002 by a coalition of churches across South Carolina.

By definition, Metanoia certainly works well with the community it serves.

"It means to make a positive transformation, kind of take upon a positive change of direction," explained Metanoia CEO Reverend Bill Stanfield.

Rev. Stanfield and his wife Evelyn live in the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood with their two teenage sons.

Before Metanoia's founding, the couple spent one year getting to know their neighbors and listening to their concerns.

"We really do believe people closest to communities know the solutions to their own problems," said Stanfield.

Stanfield saw this as an opportunity to build on the positive community members saw in their neighborhood.

And Metanoia did just that.

In addition to building leaders, it's the non-profit's mission to also establish quality housing within Chicora-Cherokee.

"We build new homes for some home buyers. We also build new homes for affordable rental, all within the community where prices are going up, and people are finding it hard to afford a place to live," said Stanfield.

The organization also invests in neighborhood assets. They support black businesses on Reynolds Avenue and have a partnership with a local manufacturing company to create jobs in the community.

"There's a systematic way of listening to the community and understanding what the community needs and then coming alongside the needs of the community and becoming an advocate for what the community wants to do," said Saulsberry.

If you'd like to nominate an individual or organization for a prestigious 'Jefferson Award, email your nomination to ABC News 4's Tessa Spencer.

One of the few remaining manufacturing facilities on the Charleston peninsula is scheduled to shut down before the new year as The Post and Courier shifts printing operations to a new location and a newer press in North Charleston.

The two gigantic presses in the former newspaper building at King and Columbus streets, an assemblage of machinery three stories tall and nearly the length of a city block, are expected to print their last editions in December.

The move to a new 48,000-square-foot facility and Evening Post Publishing’s related purchase of a 2008 Goss Magnum Single Width Press is “a big deal,” said Tom Harmon, the company’s director of facilities and manufacturing. “There are not a lot of companies that are investing in printing presses.”

Newspapers are increasingly focused on online subscriptions, which suit modern reading habits while avoiding the costs of printing and distributing papers, but The Post and Courier still delivers printed newspapers to more than 30,000 readers in the greater Charleston area each weekday.

The company will print most of the other 10 South Carolina newspapers it owns at the North Charleston site, as well as print publications it does not own and commercial printing jobs.

Evening Post Publishing Chairman of the Board Pierre Manigault said many community publications would have very limited printing options but for the company’s new press.

“I think a lot of the products that people in the Lowcountry are used to seeing are printed by us,” he said. “I think that, just like we are doing the Uncovered series and helping smaller community newspapers that don’t have the resources, we are trying to boost journalism in South Carolina.”

He said the press will also help the company diversify its revenue through commercial printing jobs.

“It is a pretty big investment, and we think it will pay for itself,” Manigault said.

Harmon said the newer press will do the work of the older two presses it is replacing more efficiently and with higher quality.

“In South Carolina, we are one of the main printers,” Harmon said. “That’s kind of our niche right now.”

Up close, the newer printing press is an imposing piece of machinery, 130 feet long and 40 feet wide. It consumes ink by the barrel and can rapidly turn a huge roll of paper into tens of thousands of printed, collated and folded newspapers, ready for delivery.

The former Post and Courier building in downtown Charleston has two older and larger presses, currently performing their final weeks of service. Replacing them at the World Trade Center industrial park in North Charleston is the newer press purchased from a seller in Sweden, which made its way to Charleston in multiple shipping containers.

Just creating a foundation for the machine in its new location involved eight truckloads of concrete, said Harmon.

“We’ve added a lot of upgrades and redid all the controls, and all the newest bells and whistles,” he said in November. “Right now, we’re at the stage where the press has been completely assembled and we’re going through the test process.”

A newer press in a new location is just one of many changes that followed the 2021 restructuring of Evening Post Industries, a company that traces its roots to The Courier newspaper founded in 1803.

More than 200 years later, the family-owned company was a multi-state business with interests in television stations, multiple newspapers, extensive real estate holdings on the Charleston peninsula, a forestry company, pharmaceutical company, a chain of hospices and a book publishing operation.

In recent years, those holdings were trimmed down, the television stations were sold off and so were the hospices. And in 2021, Evening Post Industries was split into three companies. Today, The Post and Courier and 10 other papers, along with book publishing, commercial printing and White Oak Forestry, are run by Evening Post Publishing Inc.

A different company, Evening Post Industries, owns about 12 acres of real estate on the Charleston peninsula, which is slated for a redevelopment called Courier Square. Those holdings include much of the land between King, Spring, St. Philip and Line streets, as well as the former newspaper building along the east side of King Street between Columbus and Line.

Previously, the company leased vacant land that it owns at Meeting and Columbus streets for the development of the $100 million The Guild apartments and the $38 million headquarters of Greystar, an international real estate manager and developer.

Evening Post Industries CEO Ron Owens said the company has received permission from Charleston’s Board of Architectural Review to demolish the block-long newspaper offices and manufacturing facilities at King and Columbus streets.

“We’re not going to tear it down right away because we don’t know what we’re going to build there,” he said, adding that plans will be worked on over the next year with input from community and civic groups.

The more immediate plans involve a large surface parking lot on the west side of King Street and surrounding properties owned by the company, where the company has received conceptual approval from the BAR for retail businesses, apartments and a senior living facility.

“If everything goes as planned, we should break ground late next year,” Owens said.

The Post and Courier is South Carolina’s largest news organization and has been expanding statewide, with reporters in Beaufort, Bluffton, Charleston, Columbia, Hilton Head, Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Rock Hill and Spartanburg.

“All of the expansion is digital, so that doesn’t affect the printing press,” Manigault said.

The Post and Courier is available in print and online in the greater Charleston area, and online elsewhere. Weekly editions of The Post and Courier are published in print for Columbia and Georgetown. Evening Post Publishing also publishes the daily Aiken Standard and weekly printed editions of the Moultrie News, Kingstree News, North Augusta Star, Summerville Journal Scene, Berkeley Independent and Goose Creek Gazette.

“We’ve been looking at this whole thing since the split-up of Evening Post Industries a year ago, and we’re really looking at it (Evening Post Publishing) as a startup company,” he said. “It’s a little bizarre, looking at it as a 200-year-old startup, but that’s how it is, and we’re looking for the best ways a media company can operate in this era.”

Multi-family developer Monday Properties, in partnership with Glenmont Capital Management, has broken ground on The Willow in North Charleston, S.C.

The team purchased the site in November 2021 and secured $48 million in construction financing from Sandy Spring Bank, a Monday Properties news release stated. The 338-unit, Class A multifamily community is expected to deliver in late first quarter of 2024.

“Building on the success of Monday’s completed multifamily developments in the greater Charleston area — the Mason and the Hudson — we see tremendous opportunity to further expand our footprint in the region by delivering another first-class property that meets the market’s growing demand for accessible luxury,” said Frank Craighill, senior vice president of development at Monday Properties, in the release. “Charleston is home to one of the fastest growing and most dynamic economies in the southeast, and we are excited to deepen our presence in the area with the development of The Willow.”

Located off Ashley Phosphate Road, one of North Charleston’s busiest retail corridors, residents will have an abundance of nearby retail, dining, and entertainment options, the release stated. The Willow, 7562 Plantation Road, is in close proximity to Interstate 26, as well as major employers including Boeing, Daimler, and the Charleston International Airport.

The project is designed as a private residential community with a tranquil but modern feel, the release stated. Details include large wrap-around porches and a resort-style amenity package including a zero-entry, saltwater pool, grilling cabana, pickleball court, outdoor fitness area and courtyards.

The property also includes a clubhouse with a 24-hour fitness center and yoga studio, a lounge and game room, and a covered patio overlooking the pool, as well as other indoor amenity spaces, including a variety of co-working and conference spaces and a community room, the release stated. The pet-friendly community will also feature a half-acre dog park for residents.

“The Charleston market, as well as the greater southeast, are part of our broader multifamily investment strategy, which involved doubling down in home markets like Stamford, Connecticut, and Alexandria, Virginia,” said Timothy Helmig, managing partner at Monday Properties, said in the release. “The post-COVID landscape further reinforced multifamily as a safe and high-demand investment. With key differentiators, like positive rent trends and transaction volume in Charleston, we feel confident in a successful lease up after the Willow’s delivery.”

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – It won’t be much longer before Charleston feels like spring again – and with spring in the Lowcountry comes myriad events from the Southeastern Wildlife Expo to the Flowertown Festival, the Cooper River Bridge Run and the Credit One Charleston Open.

But one thing people are always looking forward to when the warmer air arrives is enjoying live music from their favorite artists, or perhaps artists that bring back a nostalgic feeling.

We saw plenty of big-name musicians make stops in the Charleston area during their tours in 2022 Like Stevie Nicks, Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, Elton John, and Darius Rucker, and 2023 is shaping up to be rather active as well.

Here are five upcoming concerts you won’t want to miss:

The “Empress of Soul,” Gladys Knight, will make a stop at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center in early spring. The “Midnight Train to Georgia” singer has been touring much of the U.S. in 2022 and will perform in North Charleston on March 2^nd. (tickets)

Third Eye Blind, an American rock band who rose to fame in the 90s, will perform at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center as part of their ‘Summer Gods: 25 Years in The Blind’ tour on March 21. (tickets)

Best known for their emotional ballads, American vocal harmony group Boyz II Men will appear at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center on March 30^th. (tickets)

Country music star Kenny Chesney will bring his ‘I Go Back Tour’ with Kelsea Ballerini to Daniel Island with a performance at Credit One Stadium on Thursday, May 25. (tickets)

American country music group Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) will perform at the Charleston Gaillard Center on June 24. (tickets)

BONUS: For those looking for the complete music festival experience, High Water Festival will return to North Charleston’s Riverfront Park on April 15 and 16. (tickets)